The 259th Largest Accounting Firm Is Paying For Unlicensed Staff to Pursue a Master’s at the 87th Best Online Business School
Tiny little Southfield, MI firm Clayton & McKervey won’t be making Vault prestige lists any time soon but it is doing something to support its people through the process of getting the necessary 150 units for licensure: offering scholarships. Ranked #259 on the INSIDE Public Accounting Top 500 with revenue of $16,392,083, Clayton & McKervey […]
The Five Benefits Employees Want Most (Other Than Money) in 2023 According to ‘Experts’
The following article was in a recent CPA Letter Daily sandwiched between a JofA piece on how Latino CPAs found strength in numbers (pun intended?) through the ALPFA and BPM transformation officer Lindsay Stevenson talking about remote work and change fatigue on the JofA podcast. Like many articles in this vein, this Bloomberg piece encourages […]
Are ‘Strong Leadership, Agile Working, and a People-Centric Value Proposition’ on Your List of Must Haves at Work?
UK businesses within the accounting industry are understaffed by 22% and leaders everywhere are busy telling each other the things accounting professionals — particularly the younger generation — are hungry for at work. Fewer hours? Better money? Not getting scammed out of accrued PTO with a switch to “unlimited” vacation? NAH. What we really need […]
Marcum Gives Employees the ‘Gift’ of Summer Hours on Fridays
During a town hall meeting on Tuesday in which the marriage between Marcum and Friedman was confirmed internally before the official press release was slapped on Marcum’s website in the afternoon, Marcum Chairman and CEO Jeff Weiner announced that it’s almost time for all those busy season morale-boosting pizza parties to be replaced by new […]
Mazars USA Is Giving Its Employees an Incentive to Get a Sunburn
By now you’ve heard or read about the $250 bonus PwC is paying to employees each time they take a full week’s vacation for the next year. Now Mazars USA is throwing its hat into the “pay your employees to go away” ring. Mazars sent an email to employees late last month explaining its new […]
Guy Speculates On How PwC Decided to Give $250 Vacation Bonus to Employees
What our esteemed former colleague Caleb Newquist wrote in yesterday’s Gusto “On the Margins” newsletter is probably closer to the truth than not: I can just picture Tim Ryan at the head of a long table with lieutenants sitting around racking their brains for ideas. “How do we show people that we’re serious about them taking […]
PwCers Got a Holiday Concert, What’d You Get?
It’s about that time to start comparing what branded goods everyone is swapping in the name of Christmas (or Hanukkah or winter solstice or whatever it is you choose to celebrate in this, the last mile of the year), a favorite pastime of accountants everywhere. We’re hearing PwCers were treated to a “concert” (via webcast, […]
EY Threw Its Disgruntled Employees a Bone
It’s been well over a month now since EY announced it was moving away from its accrual-based vacation policy and going unlimited PTO, to the dismay of nearly all of the firm’s “entitled” employees. And EYers are still making their displeasure with the move known via memes and posts on the usual chatter sites and […]
How Are Big 4 Firms Stacking Up on Work-From-Home Benefits?
Unless you were one of the few who had the foresight to deck out your crib in multiple monitors just before SHTF this past spring, you’ve probably needed to improve your WFH set up just a bit in the months since. And because a large portion of this website’s entire purpose is serving as Steve […]
Here’s a Work-Life Balance Idea: Hangover Days
Over the years there has been much hand-wringing on the part of accounting firms when it comes to offering perks to retain top talent, a large chunk of which has been documented on these here pages. From flexible vacation to (ugh) ping-pong tables, entire firm departments have wasted countless hours coming up with ideas they […]
Survey: Accountants Want to Spend As Little Time In the Office As Humanly Possible This Summer
Here’s something that Adrienne and I are completely in agreement with: In a recent survey from staffing firm Accountemps, employees said the best summer perks their companies could provide to them are flexible schedules (52 percent) and early departure on Fridays (27 percent). But which perks are employers actually offering? Fifty-four percent of senior managers […]
Do KPMG’s Summer Employee Perks Put All Other Summer Employee Perks to Shame?
This Accounting Today article on the perks KPMG is offering to its 30,000 U.S. employees this summer got me thinking about the summer employee perks, or lack thereof, I’ve received during my career. And I’m not just focusing on my last 19 years as a writer and/or editor. I’m going all the way back to […]
The State of Accounting Recruitment and Talent Shortages in 2017
The bloody battle over top accounting talent is nothing new. Firms have been dedicating countless hours in meetings over store-bought crudités on the subject of attracting and retaining top talent for years. But a recent Wall Street Journal article about the difficulty private companies are having filling positions for experienced hires got us wondering: just […]
Grant Thornton Making Some Tweaks to Its Unlimited PTO Policy
Last time we checked on Grant Thornton’s unlimited PTO policy, we learned that it was having at least one desired effect: people were taking more time off. The median number of PTO days taken jumped from 17.4 to 19.1. However, the comments from that article suggested that things were getting a bit out of hand. […]
Letting Employees Wear Jeans Might Help Solve Your Talent Problem
Last year around this time, we were dawning on the era of denim in the accounting profession. It started with Baker Tilly, picked up steam with Crowe Horwath, faced some backlash and then finally hit the mainstream in the spring when PwC went all in. I'm sure there's a number of people out there that […]
How’s Grant Thornton’s Unlimited Vacation Policy Been Working Out?
Last year, the only second-tier accounting firm not cool enough to go by its inititals, Grant Thornton, announced a new paid-time off policy that would allow its employees to take unlimited vacation. Although GT employees seemed happy with the idea, the move was met by skepticism here and elsewhere.
What Ludicrous Perk Should an Accounting Firm Offer Its Employees?
As you well know, the war for talent in the accounting profession is on like Donkey Kong’s flies on feces. Firms are pulling out all the stops to attract people, and their preferred tactic isn’t better working conditions or salaries, it’s perks! Whether it’s PwC’s tuition assistance, Grant Thornton’s unlimited PTO, DHG’s meditation room, or […]
Should Accounting Firms Offer Housing Stipends to Employees?
Over the last several months, we've noted some surprising shifts within the accounting profession, specifically around workplace flexibility and employee perks. Recently, we've seen Crowe Horwath announce both a "work anywhere (as long as your manager approves it)" and a "wear anything (as long as it's still professional and appropriate)" policy. Fellow Chicago resident Baker Tilly announced a similar policy related to a more casual dress code.
A Noncomprehensive List of Morale Boosters for Accounting Firms
Accounting firms, who generally eat their young, are all competing for “who has the best perks” in race to scoop up all of the competent new hires. We all know that accounting culture is toxic, but aside from taking all of your allotted vacation so you don’t die at your desk like that one guy, […]
Do PwC Employees Really Like the New Student Loan Perk?
In its quest to recruit all the Millennials, PwC recently announced that it will pay $100 a month on its staff's student loans for up to 6 years. If you're wondering what the reaction has been, the firm's Vice Chairman of Client Services, Robert Gittings, told Fox Business that, “Since announcing it internally last week, […]
PwC Wants All Your Millennials
Well, we better talk about this PwC loan assistance thing, hadn't we? For starters, it's a pretty unique perk. The Washington Post reports that only 3% of companies offer loan repayment, citing a survey from the Society for Human Resource Management. It's typically used to attract a particular type of employee such as teachers or […]
What Are the Best Perks Offered by the Big 4?
Besides a paycheck, that is.
Big 4 Should Follow the Silicon Valley Model For Attracting Top Female Talent
When discussing the plight of the working woman, it's rarely suggested that women simply put off motherhood in order to climb the corporate ladder. No worries, Facebook and Apple are on it: Two Silicon Valley companies will now cover egg-freezing as an incentive for top female talent in their prime fertility years who don't want […]
EY Offers Its Fathers 6 Weeks Paid Paternity Leave, But Do Dads Actually Take It?
We've been on an "inclusiveness" kick lately and I'd apologize for that except Colin told me never apologize therefore I will not. You will recall a previous discussion we had about EY's Inclusiveness Officer (*gag*) boldly shilling to the Huffington Post about dudes' need for flexibility. We're surprised she didn't take the opportunity then to […]
EY Offers a Fantastic Employee Perk, the Only Problem Is You Won’t See It Until You’re Dead
Of course if an accounting firm were to make a list of "the ten top perks from Best Companies 2014," it would be for money. No, not a bonus. Well, maybe it's considered a bonus if your wife never really liked you that much anyway: E&Y's benefits span beyond the living. If an employee dies […]
Your Company Smartphone Scares the Crap Out of Your Boss
Let’s be honest here, how many of you use your work-issued phone strictly for work? Promise I won’t snitch anyone out. Some of you might even be lucky enough to be able to tweak your wallpaper, add apps and get your significant other on BBM for all day sexting without the pesky messaging data trail.
The AICPA’s 2011 Top Technology Initiatives Survey is out and shows that IT professionals’ biggest business technology concern is not that they could be replaced with robots but the proliferation of smartphones and other mobile devices in the workplace.
The 22nd Annual AICPA Top Technology Initiative survey, conducted Jan. 13 to Jan. 26, shows control and use of mobile devices was the No. 1 challenge for IT professionals. The finding was based on responses from nearly 1,400 CPAs nationwide specializing in information technology. In addition to mobile devices, the survey signaled future IT issues will revolve around implementation of touch-screen technology, deployment of faster networks and voice recognition technology.
“The surging use of smartphones and tablets means people are doing business, exchanging sensitive data wherever, whenever they want to,” said Ron Box, CPA/CITP, CFF. “The technology is advancing so rapidly that the capabilities for controlling and protecting the information on mobile devices is lagging behind. What was once as simple as losing your phone, could now create an enormous security risk for organizations.”
Remember back in the day when you might, say, accidentally drop your phone in the toilet at the bar and simply have to worry about recouping your contact list? Now our phones hold pictures, banking information and even client information that is oftentimes carelessly stored on unsecured devices that are taken everywhere. IT professionals can’t be expected to manage the network when the network is in your pocket, and when your pocket sometimes happens to be in the bar (you are a professional, after all).
Some of the top issues identified by CPAs in public accounting included data retention, control and use of mobile devices and privacy.
The complete Top Technology Initiatives list as voted on by CPAs, IT professionals, and others responsible for making or influencing technology decisions includes initiatives and emerging technologies that IT decision makers should be aware of over the next 12 – 18 months.
Is Ernst & Young Dishing Out iPhones to New Associates?
A soon-to-be E&Y associate would really like to get their very own version of Alan the Accountant but would prefer it if Ernie chipped in with the whole iPhone part of that equation:
I’m starting with Ernst & Young in the fall, and was wondering whether you know if Ernst & Young allows iphones to be used with their system like Deloitte? I don’t really want to ask a recruiter or anything just in case it looks bad.
For the record, some of the recruiters are easily rankled, so if there’s anything you don’t want to ask a Big 4 recruiter, you can certainly ask us.
Back to the issue at hand – if your memory serves, you’ll recall that Deloitte has been allowing all professionals to opt for the iPhone for awhile but it was just back in January that the firm quit charging you $13 a month for it.
But as far as E&Y goes, we’ve got no idea what the iPhone situation is, so enlighten the future associate.